refurbing oem interior door panels?

[Digger89L]

Has anyone had any success refurbing existing old door panels? My thought is that I could replace the hardboard, but re-use the vintage vinyl panels ...perhaps by careful use of a heat gun or hair dryer to help re-stretch them over the new hardboard? There are no tears in the vinyl ...and I have the passenger side armrest. Is there a good cleaner or polish for these panels? Any comments or advice?

[darzoom]

Try mcguires m40. Multiple applications will help soften the material. Heat is your friend. When you plan to stretch over the new hardboard leave the covers in the sun or under a heat lamp to help make it pliable. Get some of those black office spring clips to use when you get to the edges to hold until the contact adhesive has done its job. Multiple ways to do the stretch and all will work. I suggest you work from the center out as the chrome strip holes must align to the holes in the hardboard. Your may have to trim the rounded corners of the hardboard to allow for shrinkage of the old material. Good luck!

[darzoom]

You may want to cut the new boards 1/8 inch smaller than the existing boards. It may ne seem a lot but, this will make them equally smaller all around the sides and allow for 1/4 inch overall for shrinkage of the old vinyl. Also, if you take it off equally all the way around the gap is uniform all around the panel and looks unifrom. Just a thought.

[Blue Baron]

I thought of the same thing, but gave up trying to salvage shrunken door panel vinyl. The stuff gets hard and is not very pliable, and '66 vinyl had a nasty habit of shrinking. It depends of course on the climate the car lived in most its live as to whether the vinyl is pliable enough to reuse. In the end I sprung for new '66-style panels from Westcoast Classic Interiors and reused my old chrome strips and armrest. The only other option is to find a clean set of originals because '66-specific panels are not mass produced.

[Itskyle]

A vanagon I had had a bad rear hatch oor panel the hard backing that it was on was cackled or bent all to heck, causing the panel to dangle when opened. Believe it or not, liberal amounts of duct tape to the backside of the hard material of the door panel made it just as durable as new.

FWIW,

Kyle

[Blue Baron]

That's the kind of low-buck ingenuity I like.

[Digger89L]

Yeah ...I agree.

If you can't fix it with duct tape, crazy glue, or zip-ties, you're not trying hard enough!!!